Letters To No One
by ChimericalParoxysm
Summary: Hermione is given an assignment and must write a series of heartfelt letters.
1. Prologue

A/N: In response to Mi High Lover's "Sincerely, Hermione Granger" Challenge. I was given the characters _Dolores Ubridge, Harry Potter, Viktor Krum, Bill Weasley, _and _The Grey Lady_ and the challenge was to write a letter from Hermione, to the character(s), signing off with the words "Sincerely, Hermione Granger."

This is just a prologue of sorts, and the letters start after this :)

* * *

The war was over, and the living casualties remained. All days were difficult, but some were more so than others, seeming to stretch darkly into eternity. The "survivors"—both the "heroes" and those from the other side—all seemed to be characterised by a lacklustre enthusiasm for life. The worst of them—the trio in particular—were floating, uninhibited, through each day, clinging to whatever purpose they could find. Harry and Ron had become Aurors, unable to let go of their mission and to find a new one. With Hermione, they had initially aimed ruthlessly to restore the Ministry to some semblance of respectability, and with that accomplished they fell into a sort of routine. Go out, catch the bad guys, come home, get drunk, wake up, and do it all again.

Ginny, with her fiery temperament, seemed to be recovering the best. After completing her education, she'd thrown herself ruthlessly into Quidditch, and through it had begun to heal. Hermione watched gratefully as she dragged Harry along, however far behind her, strong in a way Hermione couldn't now be.

This brings us to the state of one Hermione Granger—a state that surprised much of the Wizarding World, who had expected her to bounce back easily, armed with her logic and her intelligence and her habit of researching anything she didn't understand. After the war she'd drifted, unable to process everything properly. She felt… less than whole, and it wasn't until months later that she had forced herself to return to Australia, unsure of whether she was really ready to face them yet. But she found, to her deep and enduring pain, that her parents were gone. Monica and Wendell Wilkins had died in a car crash about a month prior—the realisation that she could have saved them if she'd only managed to pull herself together faster…

"_So you feel responsible for their deaths."_

_Hermione stared at this stranger before her, cursing Ginny for consigning her to this torture. "Yes."_

"_That must really hurt," the woman said sympathetically, calling tears to Hermione's eyes because _Merlin_, she was right. "I'd like for you to do something—a task of sorts. Are you willing to consider it?"_

_A sigh. "What is it?"_

"_I'd like for you to write some letters." Hermione opened her mouth to interrupt, but the woman went on anyway. "You never have to show them to anyone, you don't have to deliver them, you don't have to write eloquently. I just want you to write an honest letter to everyone to whom you have something to say, but are keeping inside, whether because you _can't_ tell them, or because you don't _want_ to tell them."_

So here she was. At the Healer's suggestion she had bought herself some nice parchment, ink, and quills. She was settled before the fire of Grimmauld—Harry and Ron had a flat, so the place was uninhabited, save for Kreacher who came often to clean, and it had become sort of a haven for her when she needed solitude. Kreacher was operating on her request to let no one bother her—including himself—and so she was safely alone, without the risk of interruption. This precaution, she supposed, was to save her from worrying about someone walking in on her crying, thus allowing her to write uninhibited.

She took a deep breath, dipped her quill in the inkpot, and began to write.


	2. Dearest Viktor

Viktor,

I'm starting with you for the simple reason that I'm not terribly upset with you, and so I thought your letter would be a good (easy) place to start.

I suppose right now I'm a little confused about things with regards to romance, and so I've been thinking about you a great deal lately. You were my first boyfriend—my first kiss—and I think I'm pleased with that. You living in Bulgaria probably helped to prevent the heartache that came with caring for Ron. It was funny, though, to watch him so jealous of you—funny and distressing, to be honest—and you handled it all so well. You were sweet, and respectful, and absolutely not at all my type, but I had a wonderful time with you, and I care for you deeply.

I miss our correspondence, I miss seeing your disastrous scrawl across several sheets of parchment. Never have I received such lovely letters as came from you. I don't mean to sound envious or jealous. I hope that you and your fiancé are terribly happy together, but it hurts a little, I guess, that you could cast me off so easily. We were just friends, weren't we? Hardly a threat to your pending marriage… Could it have been so hard to keep in contact with me? It's been months since I last received a letter from you—my last three going out without a response in return—and I've quite gotten the message. I just can't help but wish to know the _reason_.

Everything is such a mess here. No, no that's not true, is it? Everything here is so damned _normal_. Everything. But not me. _I'm_ what's a mess. It's so hard to get up in the morning. It's so hard to drag myself about all day. It's so hard to smile at people in the street. It's so hard to say, "Great!" when people ask how I am. I'm falling apart, Viktor, and there's no one here to put me back together.

Ron and Harry and I have grown apart—them from me, not from each other. My parents are gone. Ginny is so preoccupied with getting herself and Harry through their gloom. I just want a bloody letter! How much can that be to ask? It doesn't even have to say anything, honestly—you could just say, "Hi Hermione, I'm sorry I haven't written, but I think it would be best if we stopped communicating…" Truly. That would be better than this silence.

I miss you. And it's ridiculous. How can you miss someone you only ever talk to in text? How can you miss someone, without missing their presence? It's illogical. There's nothing to miss. Why can't I just re-read your letters and smile like I used to and have everything be alright? It's not _fair_, which is such an utterly trite thing to say… But it's _not_. If only I knew why you weren't speaking to me, maybe I could convince you to start again…

I feel so abandoned.

Sincerely,

Hermione Granger

PS: Perhaps I'm more upset with you than I realized…


	3. Dearest Bill

Dear Bill,

I wouldn't ever have thought I had much to say to you, but now that I'm sitting here with this silly list before me, your name has somehow appeared upon it. Admittedly I don't have a terrible amount to say to you, and that's why I've chosen you second. While my letter to Viktor because surprisingly heartfelt, hopefully this one will be less so.

What it all comes down to, I suppose, is a certain amount of envy. We don't know each other very well, you and I, and so I wouldn't ever tell you this, but I think you're amazingly brave. You're so many things that I sometimes wish I was, wish I could be. You're intelligent—a curse breaker has to be—but also passionate, as a father and a husband and a son. To find such a balance between mind and heart… Even just to be brave enough to search for it, to suspend logic long enough to try… I have no idea where even to begin.

I sometimes feel trapped and limited by my intelligence, because it's so very hard to be anything more than smart, when smart is all anyone expects of you. I had hoped that perhaps with Ron I might find a way to reach into my heart and let it run more rampant than I have in the past, but our romance was short-lived, and I never got such a chance. How do you _do_ it? Maybe it's too late for me now.

And it's not just your heart that impresses me, nor your intelligence, but also your strength and your bravery, so true to the Gryffindor name. When Greyback attacked you, we were all so worried for you. Worried about what it might do to you physically and emotionally. But it did so very little! You found a way to accept the scars inside and out, and to forge through, healing, and remaining very much yourself. It was almost as though you _hadn't_ been marred, as though the attack had no effect on you.

I remember the next day, myself unharmed, and still feeling a chill through my very bones, as my confidence in my abilities was once more set back. Dumbledore dead, you harmed, Harry so dreadfully alone once more. How you rebounded from that so quickly—joking and reassuring even from your hospital bed—it's beyond my comprehension.

And now… Now when the war is over, and the casualties have long-fallen. When you've lost a brother, though gained a family of your own… Your strength shines, while my own fizzles to nothing. Because somehow I'm so lost, while you're only more found, and it reflects my own failure, my own deficiency, back into my eyes a thousand times the stronger. If only I could ask you, if only I could beg for the secret to pulling oneself back together… could you answer me?

Could you help me to stand tall and to be _me_ again?

Sincerely,

Hermione Granger


	4. Dearest Fred

Dear Fred,

I've quite given up on barring emotion from these ridiculous things, and so I figured I might as well just delve into it. Perhaps you'd be disappointed in me, for drowning for so long…

It was so hard to believe that you were really gone. It's been years and I think everyone still feels this hole inside of them, you know? In this place where you used to be. Maybe it's partly because George isn't quite "George" without you, and so we have this constant reminder, or because it makes your absence so much more complete. It's mostly just because _you're_ gone. You were this light that always endured. Even in the darkest of moments, the two of you shone so bright, but each of you also shone separately. To see your light go out… It made the world so much darker—was so terribly profound—like turning off the lights and leaving only a candle burning.

I was so angry with you at one point, because we _needed_ you. George needed you, and Molly needed you, and Arthur needed you, and so did every other damned person that ever truly knew you. And you weren't here. We needed the laughs and the pranks and the jokes. We needed to smile and to be reminded that there was still such a thing as joy, as happiness; that silliness was okay; that things could get better. We all, subconsciously, depended on the two of you, which maybe wasn't fair, but was nonetheless true. I don't really think any of us even fully realised your part in our lives until you died. Not to say that we didn't love you, or value you, but we just never quite got what your role _was_. Certainly, _I_ never realised how important you'd become to me.

I'm sure you never knew—no one did—but I had the hugest crush on you in fourth year. I could tell the two of you apart by third. You always were that little bit more enthusiastic; your grin was always just a little bigger; your heart that touch softer. I suppose that crush somehow left you in a sort of special place in my mind—in my heart—even though I couldn't ever show it. Not only because it was a frivolous feeling that couldn't ever go anywhere but, funnily enough, it was mostly because of Ron that I tried so carefully to hide it, and here he and I are, not really even talking anymore.

If you were here, you'd make him smarten up. Harry, too. And likely everyone else. Or maybe I'm just giving you too much credit. Maybe I'm just playing pretend, imagining a world with you being brighter, simply because this one feels so dark. But it's absolutely impossible that you could be here without things being so substantially better, if only because your family would never have needed to mourn so deeply.

We miss you. All of us.

Sincerely,

Hermione Granger


	5. Dearest Severus

Dear Professor Snape,

Or Severus? I'm not sure, really. There are things, of course, that I have to say to you. I'm sure almost everyone who has known you has something to say to you. Were you alive I certainly wouldn't deign to do so, so it's not that I have some agonizing regret about being unable to thank you—I'm sure you care not for anyone's thanks to begin with.

You puzzle me. I've always loathed puzzles which I can't complete or solve. They frustrate me, make me feel utterly stupid, and though there haven't been many, you're one of them. So many contradictions in one person. I can't bring myself to admire you. I've tried, desperately, to do so, because it seems like the right thing to do. But it never worked. Does this make me a bad person? Too logical to be virtuous? I'm not certain to be honest.

I feel compassion for you. Your life must have been awful, the entire way through. From your home life, to your life at Hogwarts, to having even your sanctuary at the Dark Lord's feet tainted by Lily's murder. I can forgive you for the horrible things you've done, and I can understand the horrible things you've done, but I cannot admire you… because I don't understand the _good_ things you've done. Contradiction, after contradiction.

You were full of dark malice and contempt. You swept the corridors begrudgingly, with your black cloak swirling menacingly behind you. You bowed before the Dark Lord and you did his bidding. I always knew you were a spy, I always knew you were secretly on our side, I always accepted that it was the truth. I supposed that you had seen the error of your ways. Or that, like Regulus, you got in, realized what it was all about, and got as far out as you reasonably could. But for it all to have been for Lily… Well that just perplexes me beyond expression.

For every good act, there was this horribly selfish motivation. And yet, surely, to have honoured her memory by protecting her son… Surely this means there was _some_ sort of good in your heart. Doesn't it? But in the end it only feels like a warped obsession, your devotion to Lily, and its transference to Harry.

Please insert a heavy sigh here.

I'm thankful though, for the things you did; I'm impressed, of course, by your strength and your determination. Harry maintains, determinedly, that you won us the war. He refuses to say how, or why he believes this so surely, but I trust in him, and so I trust in you also. Intent is not everything, I admit, and so I'm thankful for your actions, whatever they may have been, regardless of their motivation. If you won us the war, we owe you our lives. I wonder how that would make you feel…

So here it is: Thank you, Severus Snape, for everything you've done which benefited us so greatly.

Sincerely,

Hermione Granger


	6. Dearest Albus

Dear Albus,

Well, after writing to Severus, it seemed only appropriate to write to you next. Not only because you're both professors, but because… I feel similarly conflicted about you.

You were our altruistic leader; the man upon whom we depended and in whom we trusted beyond all others. Perhaps our faith was blind—we were children—but it wasn't unasked for and yet you let us down in so many ways. You betrayed Harry more than anyone, and with him lays the greatest claim of grievance. But something happened in the woods that night—the night that Voldemort fell—that changed how he felt towards you, that washed away his confusion and his resentment.

You asked him to trust you, and so he did. You asked him to be strong and virtuous, and so he was. You asked him to die for us, and so he complied. You preyed upon everything he was, and took it for granted that you could—that you _should_—use him. For the "Greater Good". Just like Grindelwald. I hope you felt remorse. I hope you stooped through each day bent beneath the immensity of your guilt.

And yet, at the same time, I hope that you've found peace. For in the end you saved us, and in the end you did what you believed to be right, rather than what you thought was easy. I could never have made the decisions you did, but I know that we would all be lost if you hadn't.

Sometimes I wish you were still here. I wish I could turn to your infinite wisdom for counsel, now that my own intellect has left me stranded in the midst of this endless abyss. I'm not going anywhere; I'm not moving. How do I start? _Where_ do I start? I had goals once, and dreams. I was going to end the enslavement of the house elf. I was going to abolish the Anti-Werewolf legislation. I was going to fall in love one day, maybe even get married. I thought I might be an Auror or an herbologist or even a professor at Hogwarts.

And then there was the war. It seems strange to me that I spent my entire childhood preparing for the war—planning for it, expecting it—and yet, when it happened, it tore everything to shreds. "The best laid plans..." How does that make sense? I had hope and faith and a blind optimism. How did _winning_ a war decimate them all? I once had close bond with my friends, with my family. Aren't trials and tribulations meant to pull people closer together?

You and I were never close—we rarely so much as exchanged greetings in the halls—but I trusted in your wisdom, and for all that it sometimes seemed to be failing, my belief that you had all the answers somehow endured. And now I find myself with my own need for answers, no longer trusting in you on Harry's behalf, and you've long gone from us. Who now do we turn to? Where do we go for answers? I feel like everyone I need has abandoned me, and sometimes... Sometimes I want to follow them.

Sincerely,

Hermione Granger


	7. Dearest Dolores

Dear Dolores,

Hah, there's something deliciously condescending about calling you by your first name. Just so you're aware. Anyhow, I figured while I was on professors, flicking to anger for a bit might be fun. Of course, I'm not terribly angry with you anymore, but I confess to feeling a certain sense of _extreme_ satisfaction at your incarceration. Knowing that you're stationed firmly behind bars, garbed in black, and relegated to a complete and utter lack of frills or pink... Well, let's just say this grin is somewhat related.

So, Dolores, here's all the things I wished I could say to you at Hogwarts, but couldn't ever. Perhaps I wasn't brave enough, for they should've been said, if only for the look on your ludicrous face.

1. You are an atrocious specimen of the wizarding society, of the human race. You're nothing better than a cockroach in a hideous pink attempt at disguise. Your frills and your frocks do nothing but emphasise what an utter dung beetle you truly are, and your perfume smells like a thousand kittens' litter boxes. (Please, no offense to the kittens.)

2. No one in the entirety of Hogwarts (save, of course, Filch) respected you a single iota. Your Death Eater friends' children, the staff, the student body at large, not even Mrs. Norris—a cat, no less—, thought you were worthy of your station, of a second glance, a second thought. We mocked you behind your expansive back, and we laughed in your pathetic visage time and time again. You didn't rule Hogwarts, you didn't have any authority within Hogwarts—just ask the members of the DA, just ask the men and women who helped to defeat your illustrious leader.

3. You are such an incompetent idiot that you should be put to death. You allied yourself with the wrong side. You betrayed those that are righteous and brave. You shunned everything different than you, solely because you hadn't the trace of intelligence required to comprehend something that doesn't manifest in your own likeness. I will abolish your barbaric legislation, and I will deliver the Prophet articles to you in person, with cold triumph. Your work will be undone. It will one day be as though Dolores Umbridge had never walked upon the dirt of the earth, never mind having possessed any station in government. I will erase you.

4. Na na na na na nah. (Because my eloquence is probably lost on you anyway.)

Ever-So-Sincerely,

Hermione Granger


	8. Dearest Helena

Dear Helena,

I confess that I've only added you to the list just now, and only because I'd like to continue my momentary distraction from the emotional tone of the others. I haven't a great deal to say to you, really, and so perhaps this is cheating (especially after the letter to Umbridge); I'm not really sure. At any rate, I have a thing or two that I might as well get off my chest, so here it goes…

You made a lot of mistakes, oh Lady of Ravenclaw. At first it was devastating to me that even the daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw could err so dramatically. I suppose, though, that it's sort of a relief. That intelligence isn't fail-proof is reassuring to me now, I confess, though there was once a time when it would have made me fearful to believe such a thing. For there are now times when I wonder whether I'm not as smart as everyone thinks I am—as _I_ think I am. To be less intelligent than you yourself suppose seems to me to be one of the greatest failings of wisdom to which anyone might ever succumb—nevermind that Socrates said it first.

You let your mother die alone, and this, of course, has some emotional relevance here. We've both done the same, haven't we—selfishly abandoned the people that loved us, too caught up in our own little world to care? I'll here try to refrain from sounding my fury with myself, from slipping into a self-loathing tirade, but I rather think we're both fairly awful people. Well, excepting the fact that you're now dead and a ghost.

I find myself wondering now whether you ever forgave yourself, if ever you felt the weight of guilt. At some point in the hundreds of years you've had to haunt the halls of Hogwarts, with the Bloody Baron present as a constant reminder of your deeds, did you ever manage to release remorse's burden? I wonder whether such a thing could even be done. Certainly I can't quite believe that I will ever forgive myself. It can be said a thousand times, and by a thousand people, that I didn't kill them—that I'm not responsible, that I wasn't even there—but I think even those that speak the words know them to be absolute drivel.

The falseness of their assurances only makes it harder, because I think sometimes that maybe I _should_ be forgiven. That, in spite of my own part in their deaths, perhaps I'm still a good person, perhaps I still deserve to be happy. I loved them. I miss them always. So many regrets... But as no one can offer me any honest confidences, I find it hard to believe that I might be intended for some sort of salvation. Surely if there was justification for forgiveness, they would tell me of it instead. At any rate, it has been years since their deaths, and I still can't quite reconcile myself with the idea of exoneration. Maybe one day…

Bloody hell! It appears I can choose absolutely anyone and still manage to find myself drowning in emotion. The Grey Lady, indeed. Perhaps this means I'm in rather more pieces than I once imagined…

Sincerely,

Hermione Granger


	9. Dearest Mum and Dad

Dearest Mum and Dad,

I've just finished writing a letter to a dead woman you don't know, and it somehow led me here. That would probably sound infinitely strange to you if you were still around. I know you'd try to understand though; that was always so important to you—understanding me and my new world, being as much a part of it all as you could possibly be. You were both always there for me as much as you could, supporting me and encouraging me, and doing your best not to be freaked out by all of the insanity…

And in return I let you die. In return, I killed you both. It tears my heart into a thousand pieces. Over and over again. If you could speak to me, I know, you'd tell me I'm being foolish. You'd tell me you don't blame me and that you love me, and that all you want for me is to be happy. Isn't it funny that all of that makes absolutely no difference?

I just _couldn't_. I couldn't do it. You must understand that. It's not that I didn't want to come and get you. It's not that I didn't want to bring you back. Merlin, I swear, a little part of me with bushy hair and buckteeth sobbed deep inside of me, begging for her parents' comforting embrace. But the rest of me just _couldn't_. I couldn't face you both. I couldn't be the girl I'd been the last time you saw me. I couldn't face you knowing that you could _never_ understand what I was feeling… what I'd been through… what I'd seen...

xXx

Well, I'm back. You can't even tell this bloody parchment was soaked with tears. Oh, magic. The marvels and the mystery. You tried so hard to understand…

We were growing apart even before the war. It hurt. So very badly. I remember the silences… full of things we were dying to say, but just couldn't. We tried so hard to care about each others' worlds. But the Muggle world felt so mundane to my teenage self-absorption, especially once the war started and everything else seemed so much more important, when I was bursting with things about my own life that I resented being unable to tell you. And the space grew, and grew… I remember wishing you would just… make it go away. Like magic, you know?

How silly.

We loved each other though. In spite of the distance. I cling to that some days. When I hate myself more than I can handle, when the guilt becomes too consuming, I just let myself remember how much I loved you, and I feel some small amount of redemption. Everyone says it wasn't my fault. My psychiatrist suggests I'm clinging to the guilt to avoid moving forward with life. She might be right. I feel like a tiny island—little more than a stone—alone in the midst of a turbulent sea. The waters are icy and black, and the wind is ceaseless, and day in and day out I'm assailed by the treacherous waves. Some days I feel my foundations crumbling from beneath me.

Something needs to change. Please, help me find the strength…

Sincerely,

Hermione Granger


	10. Dearest Remus and Tonks

Dearest Remus and Tonks,

Oh, where to start...

You fell. Valiantly, bravely, but still you fell. It feels sometimes like our own strength fell with you, for all that we won. An entire generation almost wiped out—a generation to whom we should have been able to look for guidance and support; a generation we loved and trusted so deeply; a generation filled with strength, with heroes. Your deaths meant more than just the loss of loved ones; they represented the passing on of the torch, the weight of the world turned over to a group of war torn children.

I find it hard to look at Teddy. He's beautiful and sweet and so terribly precious. And still I just can't do it. It seems like the inability arises from a different reason each and every time I'm near him. One day it's because all I see in him is you, Tonks. Another day it's because I can't help but think how wonderful you would've been with him, Remus. Sometimes it's because he symbolizes another responsibility passed on to us, one we're—Harry's—too crippled to bear. Other times it's just _because_ he's so wonderful, so wonderful it makes me want to cry tears of happiness and pain and remorse all rolled into one.

You've left us here with so much grief and so much responsibility and so little strength. We won a _war_… how can we be so weak?

Teddy should be with Harry. Harry and Ginny should be enjoying their happily ever after. Ron and I should be happily pursuing our own futures—though perhaps not together. I should be excelling in a change-making career, impassioned by my pursuits and my goals. Ron should be playing bloody Quidditch, and Harry should be an Auror—famous for his abilities instead of his fate. Everything should be so much different. _We_ should be so much different… And I don't know why we _can't_ be. I, Hermione "Bookworm" Granger, am too stupid to dig myself and my friends out of this darkest of holes.

And on top of everything we just _miss_ you. Tonks with your silly metamorphoses, and your upbeat attitude, and your _knowing_ glances. Remus with your tactful sensitivity, and your chocolate cures, and your loyal caring nature. You were both such amazing people and the world has dimmed so tragically in your absence. Of course, the world has dimmed just in general…

Sometimes I like to imagine that you're somewhere together, happily ignorant to the way we've all fallen. You'd both just started out… and I hope that if there _is_ an afterlife (Harry seems to have had some sort of encounter that makes him believe so) you've both found some sort of eternal happiness there. You deserve it, and it kills me to think it might be otherwise. If you could see us all now… Goodness, what would you say?

Haha. You would probably roll your eyes and try to lighten the mood, Tonks. And Remus, you'd probably worry yourself back to death.

If only you were still here...

Sincerely,

Hermione Granger


	11. Dearest Tom

Dearest Tom,

My next letter's going to be a bit of a "doozie" and I'm not sure what I'm going to say in it, so you get to be my tool of procrastination—how does that feel? I'm smirking right now, though you can't tell. By the way, did you know that you're dead? My darling Harry won, defeated you. _We_ won. It's strange how hard it is to remember that it wasn't all Harry… We defeated you. I'm sticking my tongue out now.

You killed many people. Caused many deaths. Brought tragedy and hatred and grief and mistrust to the world. I loathe the ground that you walked upon. I loathe the darkness that you bred. I loathe the emptiness that you left behind.

But you're nothing now. Just ashes and dust, long-consumed by the insects of the earth. Your twisted spirit must writhe in agony at the thought. And it all just amuses me. I don't feel a rush of triumph or of vengeance. Just a satisfied smirk lies on my face.

Sincerely,

Hermione Granger


	12. Dearest Harry and Ron

Dearest Harry and Ron,

I feel a burst of strength after my last letter… I hope it lasts me through this one.

So much to say… and yet also so little. To put it bluntly, we've fallen apart. Individually, _and_ as the infamous trio. Once upon a time we could just look at each other, crack a joke, and everything would be fine—unspoken reconciliation. But I don't think that's going to cut it this time. It feels like maybe nothing will, like maybe we're just stuck here in this limbo for all of eternity and nothing can help us or bring us back together again.

We spent so long in a place where it felt like we only had each other to rely on, to support us. Not just the forest, but our whole time at Hogwarts. It always felt like it was us against all the evil in the world, and we were so close because of it. And now look at us. We're all so broken. Why aren't we helping each other to stand? Why aren't we holding each other up? Why aren't we letting ourselves find our strength in one another?

The world feels so empty without the two of you. The world feels so cold and so dull. I have no purpose and no family and no friends; I can't _do_ it anymore. I miss you both so terribly. _Every day_. And I can't bring myself to say anything, to _do_ anything, because of all the fear in my heart. I'm terrified of finding out that we're too broken to be fixed...

And it all started with you, Harry. With you shutting us out after the war. No one knows what happened that night, besides you—not even Ron nor I. Why? Why wouldn't you let us in? Why wouldn't you confide in us? After everything we went through together, you just pushed us away when we all needed each other most.

And Ron. You and that stupid kiss! It was just a kiss! Just a kiss in the heat of the moment. A mistake. Even you know that—we are _so_ much better as friends. Why couldn't you let it go? Why couldn't you forgive me?

Can't you see that I'm the only one alone now? Harry, you have Ginny. And both of you have the Weasley family. And I—I have no one. Why was it so easy to let me go? How could it have been so simple to push me out? I need you both. So badly…

Come back to me.

Sincerely,

Hermione Granger


	13. Dearest Ginny

Dear Ginny,

It has been a long time since we might have been considered friends. I watch you getting on with your life—a life without me, but which I feel so sincerely that I belong in—and I can't pretend it doesn't hurt. I've so many things to say to you, so many things I wish I could. I miss you. Terribly. You were there for me always, when the boys were being boys. You were there for me always, when I was upset or distraught. But now your eyes are only for Harry. Perhaps the drive to attain the future of which you've always dreamed is what keeps you going, what helps you heal, but Harry isn't the only one that needs your help… Harry isn't the only one that can't help himself.

I know you know that. Obviously, since you practically forced me to see this woman. As I write these letters I begin to see how right you were. But maybe I don't just need someone impartial. Maybe I also need my best friend back. Life separates people. Of course it does. It pulls them apart as they grow and change, as they need different things from different people, as they need different things from themselves. But life isn't what separated _us_, for it was war, which is quite the opposite. And I sometimes wonder whether either of us are even at fault.

It feels some days like we pushed each other away in our pain, and then were both so hurt by the other's actions that we've been too afraid to take that step and become close again. I'm smiling wistfully now, at our utter silliness. I miss you and you must miss me back so maybe it's time for us to pick up our Gryffindor courage and stow away our Gryffindor pride. We could have lunch sometime, or maybe go shopping, or even just sit and watch muggle movies together like we did that one summer.

You know, as I think about it, maybe it's time to pick up my Gryffindor courage and put my own pieces back together. We've all been floating in this in-between. We fought, Harry, Ron and I, for so long to defeat Voldemort, in hopes of a life free from terror and pain, only to let ourselves hide from that very thing now that we've achieved it. Perhaps we became too consumed. Perhaps we missed something along the way.

You were less drawn into the war, the plans, the insanity of it all. Maybe you wouldn't be able to understand how we feel, to understand where we are in our hearts and our minds. It must be so frustrating for you to watch us wallow in peace and life of all things. You stand there being the strong one after years of us being the ones looked up to. Maybe it's time for me to join you in the saving of our boys. Maybe it would even help me to heal, myself.

Because I'm ready to get better. I'm ready to make amends and to find redemption and to become something good. My healer has mentioned that there's an opening at Saint Mungos, actually; she suggested that forgiveness for yourself can sometimes be found in helping others to heal. Maybe in order to be Hermione Granger once more, I have to find her, rather than waiting idly for her to come back. I just can't see how I can ever forgive myself for the things I've done. I don't see how I could ever make amends with myself. I don't see how I can ever move from this place where I stand. What if I'm just not strong enough?

I wish you were here to talk to. To give me advice.

Sincerely,

Hermione Granger

xXx

oOo

xXx

Hermione wiped the tears away and blew her nose loudly. She felt a little lighter, and a little heavier, but overall she felt _better_. She slipped from the couch to the wall of books on the far side of the room. She hadn't read—hadn't been able to focus on text—since the war had ended. Without her escape, she had been so very lost. But now, now she felt a sudden and oh-so-familiar yearning for the feel of cloth-bound covers, and ancient parchment; for the scent of aged paper, and the crackling sound of the bindings as a book was opened.

She lightly touched the titles on the shelves, her lip between her teeth as she pondered her choice. Her fingers brushed over a volume of her own and she smiled, remembering her discussion with Remus on this very book. It was a novel she'd read time and time again, and she pulled it from the shelves, draped in a sort of peaceful nostalgia, before settling back onto the couch and allowing herself to be consumed by the author's words.

_"In the spaces of calm almost lost in what followed, the question of why tended to surface..."_

* * *

A/N: And so it's finished! I really hope everyone enjoyed it :) The book Hermione is reading is _The Summer Tree_, and I must credit its opening sentence to Guy Gavriel Kay.


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